Plosker - Media Throws Israel Under the Bus

Simon Plosker
Honest Reporting
16 November '11

http://honestreporting.com/media-throws-israel-under-the-bus/

In the battle for public opinion, Israel’s enemies often claim that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is based on racial discrimination, apartheid laws and segregation. The goal is convince the public that Israel is like apartheid South Africa and therefore lacking in legitimacy.

In the latest effort to draw false analogies based on race, a Palestinian media stunt has attempted to twist the spirit of Martin Luther King and the American civil rights movement of the 1960s as six Palestinians boarded an Israeli bus in the West Bank in order to demonstrate Israeli “segregation” of Palestinians.

Judging by the amount of coverage, the international media was only too happy to give this publicity stunt exactly what it craved.

As the BBC acknowledged:

The West Bank Freedom Riders punched above their weight, drawing a lot of publicity for what was a relatively small event, reports the BBC’s Jon Donnison in the West Bank.

The comparison to the Freedom Riders of 1960s America seemed to capture the imagination as dozens of journalists gathered to see the small group board the bus, our correspondent says.

McClatchy mentions nearly 100 journalists waiting at a bus stop with the six Palestinians in the settlement of Kochav Yakov. Others reports refer to a veritable media scrum as the Palestinians boarded the bus.

So who bothered to include some vital context?

(Read full "Media Throws Israel Under the Bus")

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